[Scan-DC] Railfans: extra rail traffic in Montgomery County?

[b_thom at juno.com]

On Fri, 9 Feb 2007 06:24:22 -0800 (PST) Shawnerz <shawnerz at yahoo.com>
writes:
> There is
> another side of the railfan hobby that monitors the
> transmissions of track switches.  

The dark side.

> Sounds kinda boring,

Waiting at the station for trains to go by? How could that be?

> The data mode is called ATCS.  There is a yahoo group
> for it.  

I'm in it. I downloaded the software, but I never got around to soldering
a connection to the discriminator tap of my various scanners. Any day
now.... There's a lister at Scan-DC from Blacksburg who follows this much
more closely than I do.

In the ticket office at the Alexandria Amtrak station, there is a monitor
facing the platform that is often set to display conditions on the RF&P
tracks for some fifty miles from Alexandria south. You can follow the
progress of trains.

> I was lucky find somebody
> locally and we set up a phone call, and he got me on
> the right track. (Ha! I kill me!)
> -Shawn

That will be enough of that.

Thanks.